Domestic Battery: PC 243(e)(1)
Domestic battery also concerns a willful or intentional act on an intimate partner except that the injury can be trivial, though harmful or offensive, and need not have caused any pain to the victim. For a battery to occur, it can be any unwanted contact such as pushing or slapping the individual and doing so with the purpose or intent of committing harm. A battery also occurs regardless if the contact was not directly on the victim. For example, smashing the victim’s car window while the person was inside, snatching a necklace off the intimate partner or kicking the victim’s cat in the person’s presence could be charged as domestic battery.
Domestic battery is a misdemeanor though you can face aggravated battery charges, which can be charged as a felony if the intimate partner suffered serious bodily injury, and face state prison time. In many cases, the court will require the offender to attend a batterer’s treatment program for at least one year as a condition of probation. A subsequent domestic battery conviction results in a mandatory minimum jail time of 48 hours.
Possible Defenses to a Domestic Violence Charge
There are numerous defenses available to anyone charged with any of the above charges, some of which are dependent on the crime for which you are being prosecuted.
- Self-defense. You can asset self-defense if you reasonably believed you or someone near you was in imminent danger of being harmed or unlawfully or offensively touched and that you needed to apply force to protect yourself or that other person. The force used must be only that required or necessary to defend yourself.
- Lack of injury. If no injury occurred, then certainly you cannot be prosecuted under PC 243.5, corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant. You need not have produced a visible injury, though, to be charged with a battery offense or elder abuse.
- Lack of a sustained or reasonable fear for one’s safety or well-being. To be prosecuted for criminal threats, the victim must have had a reasonable fear of the threat and it must have lasted for more than a moment. Merely being startled or being told by the defendant that he or she may get you some day may not be enough to constitute a crime.
- False accusations. Many times, a jealous spouse or ex-dating partner or vengeful family member will fabricate a charge of assault or abuse. Often, a comprehensive medical examination will not contradict the accuser’s account of how an alleged injury occurred.
- Mistaken assumptions. In some cases, someone who is required to report suspected abuse or domestic violence will report it to authorities. A criminal defense attorney may have to launch a separate investigation to exonerate the defendant by showing that either someone else was responsible or that some other plausible explanation explains the injury.
- Violation of constitutional rights. Police must follow certain protocol that adheres to rights found in the federal and state constitutions regarding reasonable searches and seizures, extracting confessions and lawfully arresting someone.
Contact the Domestic Violence Attorney Group
A domestic violence accusation may be result of a mistake or a fabricated allegation from someone seeking retribution or vengeance against you. There are numerous cases where mitigating circumstances, unknown facts, misunderstandings or overzealous prosecutions result in unsubstantiated or excessive charges that our attorneys can examine and appropriately advise you. Promptly retaining an experienced domestic violence lawyer from the Domestic Violence Attorney Group can often mean the difference between getting your case dismissed, charges reduced, or having you plea to a different offense with lesser penalties. Palm Springs Domestic Violence Attorney – Experienced & Aggressive Lawyer and Lawyers Fighting for You in Palm Springs, California
About Palm Springs
Palm Springs is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 55 miles (89 kilometers) east of San Bernardino, 107 miles (172 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, 123 miles (198 kilometers) northeast of San Diego, and 268 miles (431 kilometers) west of Phoenix, Arizona. The population was 44,552 at the 2010 census. The city spans over 94 square miles, making it the largest city in the county by size.
Golf, swimming, tennis, horseback riding, biking, and hiking in the nearby desert and mountain areas are major forms of recreation in Palm Springs.
Archaeological research has shown that the Cahuilla people have lived in the area for the past 350–500 years. The Cahuilla name for the area was "Se-Khi" (boiling water). When the Agua Caliente Reservation was established by the United States government in 1896, the reservation land was composed of alternating sections (640 acres) of land laid out across the desert in a checkerboard pattern. The alternating, non-reservation sections, were granted to the Southern Pacific Railroad as an incentive to bring rail lines through the open desert.
The city became a fashionable resort in the 1900s when health tourists arrived with conditions that required dry heat. In 1906 naturalist and travel writer George Wharton James' two volume The Wonders of the Colorado Desert described Palm Springs as having "great charms and attractiveness and included an account of his stay at Murray's hotel. As James also described, Palm Springs was more comfortable in its microclimate because the area was covered in the shadow of Mount San Jacinto to the west and in the winter the mountains block cold winds from the San Gorgonio pass. Early illustrious visitors included John Muir and his daughters, U.S. Vice President Charles Fairbanks, and Fanny Stevenson, widow of Robert Louis Stevenson; still, Murray's hotel was closed in 1909 and torn down in 1954. Nellie N. Coffman and her physician husband Harry established The Desert Inn as a hotel and sanitarium in 1909; it was expanded as a modern hotel in 1927 and continued on until 1967.
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